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Looks like a new suit. Very smart but should have cut the label off. Purple tie for Lent too...amazing
It's his stump speech
Do you think the purple is to woo the kippers?
EDIT: Ah, International Women's Day - didn't know it had a colour.
Thornbury only just staying awake and Robertson is just in dismay/WTF is going on mode!
Becky L-B simply looks lost.
T'wit too woo....?
Can't imagine what you might mean.
Naughty edit 😉
Watch mine now..
God this speech is so bad..
Hammond just sitting back looking at the ceiling...
When he's got a proper suit on, he looks like a disgraced former geography teacher who's been told by his union rep to bloody well smarten himself up, as if he loses this industrial tribunal, he'll lose his pension as well as his job!
Our economy is not ready for breakfast!
Hammond can expect to get really dumped on re: the NIC hike - politically courageous, many journalists are freelancers and will be effected.
many journalists are freelancers and will be effected.
Typololz
NI dodging is one of the swerves of the self employed, good to see its been addressed.
I'm glad Corbyn used the word Breakfast today as it's synonymous with his leadership, Breakfast of the Dog's variety
aracer a while back there was an argument here about how tax in UK wasn't progressive so I did my own spreadsheet from something like 10k pa upto £250k. As income rose then so did the rate of tax paid. Where it gets fuzzy is with the self employed inc people who start a business and then sell it - 15% tax paid on millions/billions. However when we speak about PAYE the system is progressive.
We have less VAT in UK than most of the EU so you could argue bringing us back yo then"norm" would be regressive but we are the outlier. A bastion of progressiveness under the Tories 😉
aracer a while back there was an argument here about how tax in UK wasn't progressive so I did my own spreadsheet from something like 10k pa upto £250k. As income rose then so did the rate of tax paid
I'd like to have seen that spreadsheet as a regressive tax system must included all taxes as a percentage of income. Not just income tax.
You need to add in Vat , council tax, fuel duty , NI, insurance premium tax etc to complete the picture.
Income tax alone could be considered progressive but not the UK tax system.
Did the 259k figures also include pension contributions and other wealth management strategies to minimise tax?
The UK tax (and benefits) system is progressive
The UK tax (and benefits) system is progressive
How can it be. Lots of tax is levied at the same rate for rich and poor thereby eating into lower earners money more.
Also, council tax for instance doesn't proportionally increase with the value of the house.
Explain why you believe the tax 'system' to be progressive?
Please?
@rone, was income tax only as more than that gets quite subjective. As essentials like rent and food are vat free and utilities charged at a lower rate and any welfare/benefits are paid tax free the picture is quite complex. Then add in that lower paid get free access to NHS etc effectively paid for by others. Also as richer people tend to spend more money on "lifetsyle" they are paying a lot of VAT. The top 1% are paying 27% of income taxes, the notion that somehow that's not enough/unfair is bonkers. What Gov should be doingbis cracking down on avoidance (eg offshore corporates, gig economy and "service companies" which the likes of TV and Sports people abuse)
Did the 259k figures also include pension contributions and other wealth management strategies to minimise ta
No as above too subjective also low and behold people might be incentivised to save and not be a burden on the state / have money to spend in the economy in their retirement. As I posted beofre I saved quite a bit in my pension but I can get no where near the benenfits Corbyn has as his pension at £1.6m is way above the £1.2m threshold before punative tax rates kick in. Those on lower incomes with state pension provision could be argued to be on a negative tax rate as their pension costs far more to fund than they ever pay in tax and NI. Never mind the NHS.
@rone "council tax" was never supposed to be a tax which is why it's called Community Charge. Its to pay for services like rubbish collection which are not dependent upon property value.
@rone "council tax" was never supposed to be a tax which is why it's called Community Charge. Its to pay for services like rubbish collection which are not dependent upon property value.
Errm
The Community Charge was abolished in 1990 and replaced with Council Tax, which is most definitely based on property value.
[i]No as above too subjective also low and behold people might be incentivised to save and not be a burden on the state / have money to spend in the economy in their retirement. As I posted beofre I saved quite a bit in my pension but I can get no where near the benenfits Corbyn has as his pension at £1.6m is way above the £1.2m threshold before punative tax rates kick in. Those on lower incomes with state pension provision could be argued to be on a negative tax rate as their pension costs far more to fund than they ever pay in tax and NI. Never mind the NHS. [/I]
Yes, but this applies to ANYONE with a final salary pension, it's about a 2:1 factor in their favour over with only money-purchase type funds.
Obviously not unfair enough for Hammand to do anything about it...
I listened to John Macdonell being interviewed on Radio 4 this morning. He was talking about the burden of taxation, how its distributed, who does (and doesn't) pay what and the priorities of this government.
I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything he said.
does this mean I'm now a Marxist? 😯
Easy to say the right thing when you're not in Govt and never will be.
Well what do you want? Policies? Alternatives? I think you've forgotten the purpose of the present labour party...
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No, even worse binners, it makes you a Tory.
Look back at policy not rhetoric and the difference between the two is negligible barring Labour's silly 50p MRT stunt. And yes, that was a Stunt, not sensible policy.
The tax take is generally pretty consistent over time with changes in make up that tend to transcend party policies. There are exceptions, like the evil death tax, but these are at the margin not the core.
was income tax only as more than that gets quite subjective.
Then you would agree the the tax system is regressive? Given IT only makes up 30% of the tax take.
I would disagree on subjective - basically more complex maths - which is by design.
Then add in that lower paid get free access to NHS etc effectively paid for by others.
Lower earners don't contribute to the NHS?
Also as richer people tend to spend more money on "lifetsyle" they are paying a lot of VAT.
They don't spend more as a percentage of the earnings though. That is what by very definition is a regressive tax system.
Not enough to pay for the services they use. My point was in relation to the tax burden, we hear that low earners are disproportionally impacted by taxes like VAT yet at the same time they are consuming more services than they are paying for.
@mike on pension tax relief so as a private sector defined contribution employee I should not get tax relief on my saving (max £1.2m which buys a pension of about £40k) whereas for example a state defined benefit employee like an MP or an NHS Surgeon has total tax free gold plated pension worth £1.6-£2m (pensions of £50k-£60k pa)
Rone the "rich" are spending on VATable items whereas low income person is spending largely on VAT free.
I've stayed out of this to avoid getting bogged down, but unless I missed something a bit earlier (there's a lot of this thread I've not read) talk of regressive tax was introduced by me in response to jamba suggesting VAT on food as a tax everybody would pay. I'm not personally desperately interested in discussion of whether the tax system as a whole is regressive or progressive (and I wouldn't necessarily trust the conflicting analysis of various economists with agendas).
So would anybody like to suggest that levying VAT on food wouldn't be a regressive tax? Hence that only seems a sensible idea to the honourable member for Clacton and those who share his particular political persuasions.
It's not regressive but granted the arguments as used by the LDs and equality trust are quite clever in being plausible at face value if ultimately misleading and meaningless
[quote=jambalaya ]Not enough to pay for the services they use. My point was in relation to the tax burden, we hear that low earners are disproportionally impacted by taxes like VAT yet at the same time they are consuming more services than they are paying for.
That's completely ****ing irrelevant. Everybody uses services, that's the whole point of a state which provides services, they're not doled out based upon your ability to pay.
[quote=teamhurtmore ]It's not regressive but granted the arguments as used by the LDs and equality trust are quite clever in being plausible at face value if ultimately misleading and meaningless
VAT on food? THM wins the prize.
Can I just check, do you mean that it's not regressive by [s]Captain Rum's[/s] your definition of regressive, or do you mean that the poor wouldn't pay a higher proportion of their income on VAT on food?
I was talking to rone
I will respond to your errors later but have meetings now
[s]Blue [/s]Red steel
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That's completely **** irrelevant. Everybody uses services, that's the whole point of a state which provides services, they're not doled out based upon your ability to pay
Another 20 years of the Tory government and they will be. Assuming Corbyn doesn't unite the country behind him in the next few years.
Jess Phillips confirms that she would run for leader
I'm putting this on record, despite significant political differences, I would vote for her tomorrow!
I will respond to your errors later but have meetings now
Form a queue, morons! 🙂
[s]Blue[/s] Red steel
Shirley "Red steal", no ?
I'm putting this on record, despite significant political differences, I would vote for her tomorrow!
Well I wouldn't go [b]quite[/b] as far as that but she is excellent. I suppose thats exactly why the Labour Party have done all they can to sideline the sort of people we might vote for.
@aracer my point was in relation to the regressive tax argument, i think the "breakeven" are people that earn around £37k. They pay enough tax to pay for the services they use, note that includes a pro-rata share of corporate taxes and is for ONE person only. Yes of course we have a system which means everyone is entitled to the services and I support that 100%. My point is when campaigners talk of "inequality" and an "unfair" tax system when in fact the people at the bottom are significant net beneficiaries of it.
Most of Europe has VAT on food already.
Form a queue, morons!
Oi, I'm first in line
OK rone, lets explain why the UK has a progressive tax and benefits system and why the otherwise well-meaning people at the Equality Trust and the Lib Dems are telling porkies to make their false point.
Before the numbers, an important caveat: [b]It is (at beast) misleading to consider individual taxes in isolation[/b]
Ok the hard numbers:
Original Income: [b]Top quintile earns 14x the bottom quintile in the UK[/b]
Post tax and benefits income: [b]top quartile earns 4x the bottom quintile[/b]
Ergo - [b]the system is progressive[/b]. If you are interested you can go through each step from original income to final income from the ONS website, I cant be bothered here. It drops off at each stage except good old indirect taxes!!
So far, so good - lets look at the old stat that shows that the bottom Q pays more tax as a percentage of income than the top Q
The typical numbers:
Bottom quintile: Gross income 13.8k; direct tax 1.5k, indirect tax 3.6k, total tax 5.2k ie 37% of gross income
Top quartile: 83.8.7k, 19.8k; 10k; 29.8k ie 34% of gross income
ITS AN OUTRAGE - poor people pay 37%, rich bastards only pay 34%. REVOLUTION TIME!
But hold on one moment
What is gross income?
It is original income (your pay) PLUS any cash benefits - alarm bells should now be ringing
In the case of the bottom Q, the gross income of 13.8k is made up of 6.1k of original income and 7.7k of cash benefits
The clue is in the title - cash benefits
So the bottom Q gets 7.7 in cash benefits ie, a transfer from the state
They pay back to the state 5.1k
[b]They have a surplus of 2.5k from the state[/b] - yes they get back more from the state than they pay in both taxes combined. In actual fact their tax ratio is negative or should be.
So the LDs and ET either (1) dont understand how the numbers are made up or (2) are deliberately misleading people - you decide
FWIW the bottom two quintiles receive more in cash benefits than they pay back in taxes
Ill do VAT another time!!
[I]That's completely **** irrelevant. Everybody uses services, that's the whole point of a state which provides services, they're not doled out based upon your ability to pay. [/I]
In Jamba's defence he didn't say they were, just pointing out that there'll be a cutoff at tax/NI/VAT etc paid where below it you just don't cover what you cost. It's not a political statement, just fact.
And as people live longer (and most then generate large NHS-type costs) the cut-off will rise.
I've seen this with my Dad, even though he always had a well-paid job (ran a car factory) no way did he pay enough to cover the NHS-type costs he 'generated' in the last 5 years of his life.
John McD is giving The Donald a run for his money on making wild claims (well really he is mixing up debt and deficit buy hey ho he is only the Shadow Chancellor). A tax (ie smash and grab raid) of 20% of the ASSETS of the top 10% of the country (bound to include almost every NHS consultant and in fact most of fhe NHS GPs I know in the SE are in top 10% based on property value alone.
This isn't Torygrapgh spin he said it on camera at a Labour Party meeting